Country’s largest private carrier United Airways has suspended its operations due to insufficient aircraft and financial crisis.
“It appears from the recent developments that the availability of MD 83 and ATR 72 aircraft for flight is uncertain. As such, in order to avoid passengers’ hassle the selling of tickets is being restricted up to 28 January, 2016,” reads an email sent to a passenger yesterday.
The passenger, who asked not to be named, had planned to go to Cox’s Bazar from Dhaka yesterday. The email was sent by Shahriar Kabir, manager (marketing and sales) of the United Airways.
The email adds that the reservation system would be reactivated if there is any possibility of an aircraft becoming serviceable.
Failing to travel, when the passenger wished to cancel his ticket the airline management said they could not refund him the money.
The United Airways, which has achieved a number of awards since its inception in 2007, had to suspend operations for three days in September 2014 due to financial crisis.
According to its website, the private carrier having 11 aircraft in its fleet operates flights to eight domestic and seven international destinations.
Passengers who bought tickets in advance have been suffering throughout the month as flights have been cancelled one after another due to unavailability of planes.
When contacted, Managing Director Tasbirul Ahmed Chowdhury claimed that flight operation had not been suspended since one aircraft was still airworthy.
But a high official of the airline admitted that all the aircraft of the company were grounded now. The official expressed hope that they would be able to resume operations within a few days.
According to the Dhaka Tribune investigation, all the aircraft of the airline are grounded now due to technical glitches. The last flight was operated by an MD 83 aircraft to Kuala Lumpur in mid-January which finally returned to Dhaka after one of its engines was shutdown at mid-air.
The company’s revenue earning also decreased drastically, as it could not operate most of the aircraft in the past one year. Most of the employees of United Airways did not get their salaries in the past four months which compelled them to leave the organisation.
According to officials of the airlines, around 40% cockpit crews, cabin crews, engineers and officers of different departments left their jobs in the last couple of months.
Mizanur Rahman, member (finance) of the Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh (CAAB), told the Dhaka Tribune that the United Airways had not paid its dues of aeronautical and non-aeronautical charges worth over Tk125 crore.
“Its management did not pay a heed to the repeated notices we have issued. At one stage, they took the issue to the court,” he said.
An official of CAAB said the airline authorities had promised to pay its dues in several instalments, after a high-level meeting with CAAB officials. In line with the decision, the airline gave CAAB two cheques of Tk108 crore at the end of December but those bounced back because of insufficient money in its account.
“Had the regulatory body cooperated with us properly, no aircraft would have been grounded. We sent letters to CAAB seeking cooperation in C check [a major maintenance of the engine] at different times, but it did not send its inspector on time. It caused us big trouble last year,” Tasbir said.
“The airline now needs Tk628 crore for revitalisation. Of the amount, we have planned to raise Tk400 crore from our shareholders by offering rights shares while the rest by buying bonds and leasing out aircraft,” he added.
Earlier, it raised Tk400 crore through rights shares and bought some old aircraft.